


In your arms (is the best place to be)

by Queen_Islanzadi



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Strike Team era, one day i might write smut but it is not this day, pure self-indulgent fluff, the strike team is mentioned but they don't appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:49:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8595013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Islanzadi/pseuds/Queen_Islanzadi
Summary: Jack and Gabriel enjoy a lazy morning in bed on a rare day off. 
(It's just fluff because they deserve to be happy.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd. 
> 
> I needed fluff of Jack and Gabe cuddling in bed and well, I couldn't find any. So here's something, I guess.

The soft tones of early-morning sunlight were just beginning to fill the room when Jack let his eyes flicker open, the glow that heralded the first rays of a clear day peeking through the open curtains. Quiet snores filled the air, accompanied by the gentle rise and fall of Gabriel's chest as it pressed intermittently against Jack's back with each breath he took. The heavy weight of one arm, skin marked with a few scars of various sizes and severity, was draped over Jack's waist. Similar scars, reminders for both men of the hard work and self-sacrifice that they had made in the name of protecting innocent lives, patterned Jack's own skin.

A glance at the clock on the bedside table showed it was not long after five thirty in the morning. Growing up on a farm followed by years in the military had ensured Jack remained a habitual early riser and it was rare indeed that he stayed in bed past six. Gabriel, on the other hand, took every opportunity he could on his rare days off to laze in bed for as long as possible. He'd once memorably lectured Jack early on in their relationship about the latter's penchant for getting up “as soon as you wake up, goddamit Morrison just stay in the fucking bed and relax for once”.

The memory rolled through his mind pleasantly – he'd actually taken the advice – and Jack moved his hand to rest on top of the one Gabe had splayed over his abdomen. Jack laced his fingers into the spaces between Gabriel's and brushed his thumb back and forth in an idle caress. The gaps between Gabriel's fingers always seemed to be just the right size for his own, Jack mused with what he suspected was a ridiculously sappy expression on his face.

Shortly after that, the rumbles of Gabriel's snores stopped and Jack knew his fidgeting had likely brought the other man out of deep sleep and into a lighter doze, if not woken him outright. Neither of them slept particularly soundly--sleeping like the dead wasn't a good habit to get into when you were out in the field, unless you were looking to actually join the deceased. And they were in the field a lot.

His eyes drifted closed again and he let his mind wander aimlessly, lulled into the meandering consciousness that the half-awake plane of existence brought. It felt like somehow both an eternity and only mere seconds had passed by when Gabriel sighed drowsily and shifted one of his legs, using the point of his knee to nudge between Jack's own and tangle their limbs together. There was a scratch of facial hair against his neck when Gabriel pressed a kiss below Jack's ear, then the pillow shifted behind him when Gabe rested his head on it.

“...time is it?” Gabe's voice was low, hoarse and sleep-rough, and the sound sent a thrill shooting through Jack's chest and to his stomach every time he heard it like that.

He cracked his eyes open and looked over at the clock again before he answered, somewhat surprised to learn how much time had passed. “Oh-six-seventeen.”

“And you're still in bed?”

“Hmm. We should get up. Got a debriefing today,” Jack replied.

“Should have just been done last night. None of us needed urgent medical treatment and then we would have had the whole day free,” Gabriel grumbled.

Privately, Jack agreed. While the strike team had returned to the base at a late hour, Gabriel was right when he said none of them needed medical attention urgently--the most severe injury sustained during the op was a relatively deep slice in Gabe's upper arm where he'd been grazed by a bullet from one bastion unit. He'd been fast enough to dodge most of the hail of gunfire but had struggled to fit the bulk of his shoulders behind their meagre cover and as a result, had been grazed by the last of a strafing shot before Jack had taken out the omnic with a helix rocket blast. Thanks to his accelerated healing rate – courtesy of the SEP – and the first aid treatment by Ana, Gabriel would have had no issues making in through the mission debrief and some time afterwards without being seen to by any of the doctors.

“It was late, though,” Jack countered, though his heart wasn't in it. “Probably too late to organise everyone. But either way, what's done is done. We can't change it now,” he disentangled his legs from Gabe's and shifted underneath the arm draped over his side so that they were face-to-face. 

Gabriel yawned, his nose and the corners of his eyes crinkling with the motion, then blinked at him languidly. Jack, helpless as always when confronted with how damn adorable Gabriel could be (and how could someone with such a gruff exterior be so cute), let his lips curve into a small smile.

“What're you smiling at, corn boy? You've got dried drool on your chin,” Gabriel's face gave nothing away but Jack was close enough to him to see how his pupils had dilated.

He scraped a hand over his chin impatiently and yes, Gabriel was right. There was a trail of crusty saliva from one corner of his mouth down his face. A few more swipes of his hand had the marks removed and then he slid his right arm under Gabriel's head so that his bicep was acting as a pillow. The fingertips of his other hand skated over Gabe's hip and up his ribs, mischievous and feather-light, revenge for the drool comment. Gabriel huffed out a breath and sucked his stomach in reflexively, curling inwards and jumping away from the touch. Few people knew he was ticklish and Jack was one of them.

“Don't,” Gabe growled, moving his previously-injured arm down quickly to grab Jack's wrist in a tight grip. He pushed the offending limb back towards it's owner and held it there, not releasing it yet.

Jack grinned at him and Gabriel's scowl deepened further--Jack was sure that he practised the expression in the mirror in secret, impressive as it was.

Letting go of the wrist but keeping his hand hovering close by, Gabriel lifted one eyebrow in a silent warning. Jack's only response was a wider grin, staring into dark brown eyes determinedly.

The stalemate dragged on until finally Gabriel snorted out a laugh, breaking eye contact as he shook his head minutely. “You're an asshole.”

Jack tucked his arm under Gabe's, placing his hand between the other's shoulder blades. He shuffled his whole body forward slightly so that they were pressed together from chest to knee and zeroed in on Gabriel's mouth, pausing when their lips just barely touched. Goosebumps rippled over his skin as he flicked his gaze back up to meet Gabriel's and murmured with his lips brushing tantalisingly against Gabe's, “you're the asshole.”

Before the inevitable response could come he closed the gap between them in a sweetly familiar kiss. Gabriel tilted his head a little to get the best angle and then they were even closer, the day-old stubble on Jack's face rubbing against Gabriel's beard, nose pressed to cheek. 

They both parted their lips at almost the same time and oh, yes, there was that gloriously slick slide of tongue against tongue. It was all softness, free of the teeth and urgency and intent that usually filled their kisses while in bed. Gabe's hand crept up over Jack's back, past his shoulders to cup his jaw tenderly, a sharp contrast to how he shoved his thigh back between Jack's legs. They were both on their way to being half-hard beneath their underwear, grinding lazily against each other.

Reluctantly Jack broke the kiss before it became any more heated. The way Gabriel exhaled as he pulled away, all stuttery and shaky, damn near had Jack climbing on top of him to see what other noises he could achieve (past experience told him they'd be heavenly) but instead he leant his forehead against Gabriel's. They stayed like that while their breathing slowed back to normal and in that span of time Jack lost himself in the way Gabe's eyelashes fanned against his cheek, all long and dark and wonderfully perfect.

“Morning breath, babe. Not good,” he eventually murmured with a crinkle of his nose.

“We've gone way further in worse condition and you know it,” Gabriel retorted.

“True, but we're on base now. Let's at least try to live like civilised people.”

“Hmm. Civilised people get to sleep in when they can.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “How's you arm now?”

“It's fine,” Gabriel replied dismissively, shrugging the one shoulder he wasn't laying on as best he could.

“You didn't even look at it,” Jack chastised half-heartedly.

“Don't need to. We both know it's going to be basically healed by now anyway.”

“Gabe,” his tone carried his exasperation and fondness.

“Stop breathing your nasty-ass morning breath in my face and go brush your teeth,”Gabriel snarked back at him as he pushed at Jack's hip gently (well, gently for an enhanced and ridiculously buff soldier). “I'm going back to sleep.”

Jack heaved a long-suffering sigh and slid his arm out from underneath Gabriel's head. He untangled their legs and slowed just long enough to flick one finger lightly over Gabe's vulnerable stomach, already rolling towards the edge of the bed. Gabriel, not even bothering to open his eyes, lashed out with one hand in his general direction but Jack was fast enough to dodge the expected strike.

“Fuck off, Jack,” the words were slurred as though Gabriel, likely on the cusp of dozing off again (when he had the opportunity to sleep Jack knew he could go from awake to out cold almost instantly), couldn't be bothered to articulate them properly.

Jack followed his momentum through the roll and let his legs swing off the bed, pushing up in one smooth motion to stand up and stretch his arms to the ceiling. One perk of the SEP--it took a hell of a lot of punishment for him to still be feeling the effects of a mission after a decent night of rest.

Glancing about the room, he found the bed linens in an unsurprisingly dishevelled heap at the end of the mattress. He and Gabriel both had higher than normal core body temperatures thanks to the SEP and that, combined with the night terrors he knew they both experienced, tended to result in the bedding being kicked off before the night was through. Even though Gabriel tended to feel the cold more than Jack, the only time he had known Gabe to wake up still covered by his blanket was on a mission to Canada, where Gabriel had moaned almost incessantly about the cold and the snow and how he “was Californian and not built for ball-freezing conditions”.

He crossed the small quarters to the even smaller attached bathroom with his mind still on the Canadian mission. Reinhardt and Torbjörn had needled Gabriel about his sensitivity to the cold until Gabriel hand lost his temper, ordering them as their commanding officer to “shut the hell up and stop trying to get us fucking killed, just focus on the mission”. Ana had merely clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and huddled silently into her layers in search of more warmth.

As he squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush and began to brush his teeth, Jack's thoughts wandered to another strike team mission – this one in South Africa. The heat and humidity had been nigh-unbearable for Jack, Reinhardt and Torbjörn and Jack could still vividly recall the way the air shimmered in the unrelenting sun, and the mirages that appeared in the distance. The mere thought of the awful, sticky conditions had sweat beading at his temples and after rinsing his mouth out, he rinsed his face with cold water as well.

Jack scrutinised his reflection in the mirror after patting his face dry, scrubbing a hand over the day-old stubble on his jaw with a frown. Shaving could wait until tomorrow, he thought recklessly – it was supposed to be his day off. The senior officers that were to attend the debrief holo-conference later this morning would surely disapprove of his non-regulation appearance but he found that for once, he didn't really care. He'd well and truly earned a day off--the entire team had.

He relieved himself and washed his hands before leaving the bathroom. The sight of Gabriel, now sprawled on his back in the middle of the bed with one arm stretched up above his head, made Jack pause. The contours of his body, clad only in a pair of black boxer-briefs, were highlighted excellently by the light slowly creeping across the room and Jack wanted nothing more than to get back into bed and savour the moment.

Stepping as lightly as possible so as to not wake Gabe, Jack moved so that he could read the clock. They still had an hour or so before they needed to be up and getting ready for the debriefing. 

Decision made, Jack grabbed the sheet from the foot of the bed and pulled the top of it with him as he sat down on the edge of the mattress. He draped it over Gabriel's lower half and then lay down himself, covering up to his waist as well. 

As soon as he stilled, Gabe curved towards him with a hum of satisfaction deep in his throat. He threw one thigh over Jack's hip, slung an arm across Jack's body, and nuzzled into the junction of Jack's neck and shoulder. Small puffs of air rushed over his skin every time Gabriel exhaled, a contrast to the uncomfortable itch of his beard. 

Jack sighed contently, closing his eyes. Gabriel smelled fresh and clean, like soap and his own Gabriel smell that Jack honestly didn't know if he could live without. It was a scent that he'd gotten used to having around almost constantly, beginning with when Jack had been recruited into the SEP years ago.

“Didn't think you'd come back,” Gabriel admitted. He didn't bother to move his head to speak and the words were muffled by Jack's neck.

The reply was out of his mouth before his brain had really processed the words. It was possibly the cheesiest, corniest thing he'd ever said to Gabriel and if Gabe had been awake enough to process the words Jack doubted he would have ever lived it down.

It was still true, though.

“I don't think I could ever not come back for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow @ me did you have to with that last line ???
> 
> Find me on tumblr: queenislanzadi.tumblr.com


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